Special thanks:
to everyone that supplied food and drinks to help feed the masses.
to those that brought bags and shirts off me
to those that helped us clean up all the garbage at the end
the grill masters
Scott Hansen and Corey Current for putting up with me and the other net noobs
Man, this weekend was so much fun. The only thing I can compare this to was last years NYJ, several days of hanging out with cool people, eating great food and having lots of fun playing all kinds of footbag.
I picked up Zach from the train station friday afternoon. We hooked up with Tom half way back to my place. Reile was already there and we watched a bunch of the hilarious video clips he has on his PC. This has become a favorite activity of most house guests we've had. Soon after we went out to do the groceries for the jam. This was quite fun because I'm usualy the one acting like the parent trying to get shit done while everyone else is screwing around. Zach and I started hacking in the middle of the grocery store which turned into a heated battle of 2-square game. We then started playing net over one of the open freezers while people casually shopped around us. At one point we were trying to kick the bag inbetween these 2 jars that was about 9 inches apart. Fetusmaster proved he was the better shot by banking a goal in before I could. We stopped when the dairy products stock boy started giving us stern looks
Back home we ordered a pizza from Villa Palermo. We watched my favorite episode of Kung Faux as we devoured the food -"Yeah, I kicked you in the ribs and made your lip bleed!" After Tom had left, Zach asked to check out my footbag collection while Reile prepared the italian beef for tomorrows dinner. The three of us took turns playing Guess the Stitcher with all our 32's, I LOVE this game
I worked the next morning to come home to the smell of italian beef filling every inch of the apartment - FUCKING SUHWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!!!! But I had to save it for dinner
Reile and Zach came back after running errands all morning just in time to hook up with Dan (
) We watched more clips on the PC. This was the first time Dan had seen the footage of the infamous Mohawk/Punchingz/Wrestling night. Surprisingly, he took to the footage of him being
teabagged (multiple times) quite well.
Toms calls and we go out to Welles Park to hook up with him and have a last minute session. On the way over Dan tells me another story to add to the club's already impressive archive. It was so good to just hang out exclusively with him (as opposed to having 35 other people around the next day) because we really didn't get a chance to chillax at NYJ. We shred for a while until Tom and I broke off to toss a disc around. Dan soon joined in. At one point he looked at me then stared up into the sky, before I could guess what he was up to he launched the frisbee at a sharp angle that peaked about 30-40 feet above and behind me. I stood in place and arched backwards to keep my eye on it. I stretched out my arms straight out in front of me as the disc came down and to everyones amazement (including my own), it landed right into my hands
The session didn't last much longer. Zach was still shredding it up (as usual) while the rest of us chatted away. We said our good-bye's to Dan then the rest of us eventually made it back to the apartment for dinner.
Finally I could get my hands on this food! We all took turns dipping the bread in the gravy, making our own sandwiches and getting our drinks. It was decided that we all take our first bites simutaneously, which slightly agitated Reile since he was the first to finish making his and I was dragging. I took my seat at the table where everyone else was waiting anxiously to start. I really don't recall if there was a countdown... I just remember taking that first juicy bite and having an instant and major droolgasm. I'm pretty sure everyone had the same reaction, or at least something very similar. Huge props to Reile for the incredible food. I crashed early that night and the big day was almost here. To be continued...
Sunday. Zach Reile and I were all awake when Tom called. He had his grill in his car and offered to drop by to help us load stuff up and get to the park. We had 2 large coolers for drinks and such, a smaller cooler for the food, a box full of shirts and footbags, and a bunch of bags of groceries and other miscellaneous items for the jam. This was completely different from last year, where we just showed up with our shred gear. We loaded up both rides and headed to the park. I told Tom I could predict the future and we talked about how this year's jam was going to be so big and so much fun.
We set up at the spot and people started coming in not long after. Shred circles and a game of 4-square was immediately started. Only a few hours into the afternoon and the jam was in full effect, there were people everywhre playing footbag. Shred circles were overflowing into the 4S court which eventualy evolved into 6-square with a long-ass line. A takraw was brought out and big hack circle was immediately formed. Net was set up off to the side with people constantly coming in to try it out. The cold and hungry bodies began to migrate to the grill the minute it was started. While the process of obtaining food seemed a little chaotic, I think most everyone came away with something to quickly devour so they could get back to playing as soon as possible.
I took a few moments to look around and watch this enormous mass of footbag happening in front of me. Other than the hour after we got to the park and the hour or so before we left there were no less than 20 people still playing. Shred circles were constanlty changing up, freestylers playing squares and handfull of new players playing net for the first time. It was mentioned several times during the afternoon that this turnout was is possible
every weekend.
